Slashdot Mirror

They could have just invested in Canonical and Ubuntu, rather than try to reinvent the wheel.

Why Canonical and not any other Linux company, I mean (K/X/Ed)Ubuntu is great, (most of my computers run Kubuntu or Xubuntu), but Google has a particular objective: directing as many as possible users to Google products, this is clearly not the goal of Canonical.

And besides, diversity is good, the goal is not to supersede one monoculture with another - Ok, Google is not the first address as far as diversity is concerned, but still.

Another window manager just dilutes the current pool of people trying to do KDE and Gnome.

It's not that the two are the only players in the FLOSS field, and probably they are not even the best for the specific requirements of netbooks. Fluxbox, Enlightment, or even something like Sugar are much more lightweight and might be better for the functions required. Or even Google has something new and exciting to offer. Anyways, I even doubt that the KDE and Gnome guys actually wouldn't appreciate other ideas being tested.

> ... food and enlightenment

you mean this? I didn't know monks were that picky about the wm.

When you copy files the taskbar thumbnail shows a progress bar.

Right here is the class reference for changing the icon of an application in OS X. An example of this being used is Xcode provides you with a progress bar in the icon of the application to show the status of the project as it builds. Granted, this isn't for copying files, but the potential is there if you wanted your application to do that.

You can search from the Start button for any program, email, or document, and all without touching the mouse.

One of the default modules, exebuf, of the e17 desktop manager allows the same behavior, and has had it since e17 was started about six years ago. Press Alt-escape, and then type in your command and it gives you suggestions as you type. Also, you can add keystrokes to navigate the start menu, just like windows.

When you're managing files you can drag 2 windows to either side of the screen to stack them horizontally, keeping each window fully in view, and when you're done you can move them away from the edge and they return to their previous size.

This is surely nice and useful, but you can do the same in a number of file managers, the oldest I think being norton commander.

You can pin document shortcuts to program icons so that you can right-click the program to directly jump to that document with that app, instead of having to open the app and browse to the desired document.

In OS X you drop a file onto an application icon and it opens it. No browsing required.

You can repurpose the "shut down" button on the Start Menu to restart, hibernate, sleep, or whatever you want.

This is nice, but in OS X I can hit my monitor power button and get the shut down menu, I can hit the power button on the computer to get the same, or I can use the apple menu, or in e17 I can add a short cut for whichever command I want. The point is that similar customizable functionality exists elsewhere.

I will grant you that windows 7 may combine these useful features in a good way, but to say that windows is innovating, I'll believe it when I see it. I will believe you and try installing windows 7 over my vista partition though, because frankly, using vista is like having to have a wet dog in a tent. It stinks.

No, I've never seen a demo of the phone.

Why would I, when I own one?

Now, you're statements are based off a fairly old "lets get this hardware in the hands of developers with most of the hardware working" software stack, so indulge with me a little bit as I dispel some misconceptions, and explain what has brought me to love my freerunner. First and foremost: my intentions for this phone when I am done with it is to use it as a small, rather general purpose microcontroller (what are your plans for your iphone/gphone, the garbage?). Seriously, it has gps, wifi, two accelerometers, gsm modem, sd card, vga touchscreen, bluetooth, USB host mode (plug other USB devices into the the thing - heck yeah!), and open schematics. I even triple boot the phone with the old 2008.9 stack (cause it has a fairly stable userland), the latest SHR-testing (Stable Hybrid Release) for developing applications for the phone with the elementary widget set -note, this is where the stack is going. It boots in about 45 seconds, and is oh so shiney. (seriously, do you actually know anyone who TURNS OFF their phone anyway?), and I rolled my own (log in over ssh only) embedded linux system just to mess around with. All of these are INTENDED uses of the phone, with FULL access to hardware & software (sadly, not firmware, but you know how these FCC types are about their cellular modems and wifi networks).

A fine example of how open and flexible this phone is: I broke my freerunners screen (tragic, user error, really), and in about 5 minutes I had my computer connected to my phone with vncconnect, with very little hassle. Even when my phone is broken, it works as a phone (albeit within 12 feet of any linux box). This is just a continuation of the flexibility I've come to expect from my phone since I started using it for daily use in September (didn't have a sim card before that, can't comment on how good/crappy it was before then, but it does sound like it used to be pretty crappy before then). And then there's the userspace: tangogps is a fantastic maps application, I have fbreader for my ebooks from gutenberg.org, a few things I've made myself, and enough games for me (seriously, the iphone has x bajillion applications... that all do the same thing. So much less wasted replication of work in opensource projects). Syncing with my computer isn't up to snuff at the moment, but that will come. You might be able to argue that at the moment it isn't consumer ready (but believe you me it will be in just a few more months - FSO is awesome!), but it is by far "slashdot geek" ready (excepting those who talk and don't do, of course).

Another point: I have gcc installed on my phone, along with perl, and a bluetooth keyboard with full 80 character lines of text in portrait mode on a vga screen, what's not to love?


As far as I'm concerned, Android is for people who talk openness, OpenMoKo is for people who doopenness.

The unfortunate reality is that this split will only be resolved when either GNOME and all of the associated GTK applications die, or KDE and its associated applications die

I think that's a little extreme. There is room for more than one desktop environment. Just like there is room for both Windows and OS X, or Vista and XP for that matter.

I think that Nokia trying to open up Qt is absolutely great. The reason is that I think that the kde apps are great like amarok, gwenview, konqueror and k3b, but what I dislike is kde itself. kde isn't bad, but I prefer to use e17 as my WM because I wrote my own theme for it that doesn't look like anything else you've ever seen in a WM. What I'd very much like to see is to be able to run kde apps without having to load all the kde overhead. It's annoying like hell, that if I want to load gwenview or konqueror I have to load the dcopserver and all the other kde Krap and there's no way to shut it off (yes I know what the dcopserver does, but I'd still like to turn it off). Ergo, if Qt is more widely used outside of kde, perhaps we'll see some of my favorite applications able to run without loading all the kde libraries and helper apps.

No, that's the right icon. Enlightenment was written by Carsten Haitzler who used to work for SourceForge, Inc, formerly VA.. You better have a good reason for not knowing this or I'll report you to the low UID authorities for fraud.

Once again the Enightenment category/icon is misused on a Slashdot story.

I guess it goes to show how long Slashdot has been around, that it has a category for the Enlightenment window manager. And how certain software packages can come and go. But I hear that E is being used on mobile phones now...

The repository is here, it works fine.

I'm not sure whether to be happy, because desktop linux is simple to the point where building from source is considered unusual and hard; or sad, because I'm hearing this from people who are supposed to be geeks...

The Revision Log Begs to differ.

It gets updated quite a bit, there's releases every now and then, but it is still considered a development version.

He did a lot of work on imlib2, which languished for years until better software replaced it (where "better" might mean "less buggy" or "released more frequently" or "appears maintained").

To which software are you referring? (Honest question, not rhetorical.)

I've never thought that he had much interest in releasing stable versions of his code with any frequency or rhythm. That's not the sole criterion for positive notoriety, but releasing software that people can actually use is important.

The release cycle is painfully slow, or possibly even non-existent. One of the lowest layers in the E17 actually has a release version. And I just now noticed that there is a release snapshot for E17 and EFL. I haven't taken the time to look at the actual bug lists for the whole E17 project, but I am one of the many people saying "E17 has been quite stable for me and I use it every day". So there's some positive hearsay for whatever that's worth. :)

(One caveat is that I stopped using Enlightenment a decade ago, around E14, because the new versions weren't stable or releasable.)

In all fairness, E14 was a looooong time ago. When development for E17 got started, E16 got handed off. It's been a supported, "release quality" product for quite a while now (not as glamorous, obviously). I lurk on the enlightenment-users mailing list, and see a fair number of people asking questions about E16, bugs getting fixed, etc, relative to the general E17 traffic.

Anyway, I've got high hopes for an actual, true-to-life E17 release version... it was actually asked about recently on the e-users mailing list. Raster said they are working towards a release. The snapshot news linked above supports they notion that he is following through with this.

I was intrigued when they first started selling the green PCs, because gOS was running e17. I thought that was pretty cool since that was the first distro. I knew of besides e-live that was based on e17. Since they've switched to gnome they've lost some of that uniqueness and I haven't kept up. I still think it's pretty cool that everex selling their PCs with gOS on it at a major retailer (walmart) though.

Innovation is messy... you invent a design idea and hope the masses like it. Sometimes the innovation is great and everyone loves it. Sometimes the innovation is awesome but it's not released soon enough so it never takes off and is eclipsed by a different technology. Sometimes the innovation is released too early and everyone hates it.

You don't want innovation from Microsoft. What you really want is a Windows 7 that is enough like XP that you know how to use it and most of your existing application still work, but includes the few features you've come to enjoy on Mac/Linux/BSD/etc. Please stop using the "innovation" buzzword.

Well at least another section is being misused besides enlightenment.

(It's this dumbass!)

10 hours, later and only now /. is mentioning it.

Personally, I find the the Quake 3 symbol a nice touch. Nice to see another section is being misused beyond enlightenment.

That's why they use DR16 and DR17 as names now. The guys from enlightenment now what they are doing!

"Does this mean GNOME is now a better desktop than KDE, or just that I have become so accustomed to GNOME that it's hard for me to give it up?"

No. It just means that you have not been enlightened.

not well know ..but for me the best windows manager ..
http://www.enlightenment.org/p.php?p=index&l=en

WindowMaker and Enlightenment

I still use the wallpapers from Rob's 2001-inspired, "Obsidian" theme.

Do you remember when building Enlightenment required the X-Free tools and xmkmf

e2d2, meet Rasterman. http://www.enlightenment.org/

Sorry guys, but this is just another "gee I wish I could find yet one more way to bash MS" story.

Your post is yet another pointless "gee I wish I could find yet one more way to promote MS" posting.

The larger discussion is one about bandwidth. It is the bandwidth from the computer to the user that ultimately matters to being productive. More screen realestate (larger monitors and more of them), fast accurate mice, touch typing, and special input devices are all part of increasing this bandwidth. Other areas include speed of the computer (needs to be responsive), and design of the application and windowing system.

The design of the windowing system is incredibly important, and the place where Linux really shines. MS Windows/Office have things in the system that slows the user down: Delays and slow animation when opening menus, delays after opening up applications, non-resizable windows, lack of good virtual desktops, no resistance when moving windows, and lack of focus follows mouse. While on this topic, it is depressing to see KDE and GNOME heading in this direction. Linux diversity helps me solve this problem. Thank you Enlightenment.

For the record, my work setup consists of 2 24" flat screens 1920x1200 connected to a Linux box using e17 and an additional 24" monitor connected to a MS Windows machine that uses synergy to make the entire display feel like a single computer. Each linux monitor is also using 5 virtual desktops.

Actually, Englightenment was brought forth from Rasterman, and if not for it we would be condemned to an eternity in the fiery pits of fvwm doom!

Linux, the ugly duckling of the pack, yet she loves you completely without resevervation, she doesn't want your for your money or status. She is open and honest. And if you love her you can turn her into the princes of the ball but unlike the pretty windows, the linux girl stays true to you.

Given things like Enlightenment and Beryl, Linux is only as ugly as you let it be. And E (preceded by fvwm-xpm) has been around for just around 10 years now, so it's not anything new, either.

Linux is more like the geeky hot asian girl who can cosplay anything, has all the cool technology, and stays true to you.

What you're describing is largely the result of ignorance and if piracy were defeated, the third world would not be able to afford proprietary software. I'd say free software is pretty damn important and you're doing a huge disservice to developers.

Comparing some KDE theme to windows 2000 is irrelevant because users don't care, a computer is a tool for doing work. If eye-candy is important then install a better theme for KDE, enlightenment or Beryl. Personally I find all that distracting and opt for a clean themed fluxbox YMMV.

They are enamored by the GPL license.

I don't think that's remotely true.

GNOME is LGPL, not GPL. In fact, they consider it an advantage to not use the GPL.

KDE libraries are LGPL, KDE applications are GPL.

XFCE uses a mixture of the GPL, LGPL and BSD licenses.

Enlightenment uses the BSD license.

GNUStep uses the LGPL.

As you can see, none of the major free operating environments use the GPL exclusively, in fact half of them don't use it at all. Hell, GNOME is part of the GNU project, the FSF recommends the GPL instead of the LGPL, and GNOME ignores them and use the LGPL anyway.

...the immortal need to balance sizzle with steak. ;-)

However, I and my friends at irc.linuxfromscratch.org have known the answer to this question for a while now...a window manager which will turn even the most pitiful, helpless of newbs into the proverbial black-leather clad h4XX0r in the blink of an eye.

"What are you trying to tell me...That I can dodge bullets?"

"No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you run Enlightenment, you won't have to." ;-)

What does this story have to do with the Enlightenment Window Manager?

Gah, beat me to it. Ah well, here's what I was going to post (slightly more polite):

KDawson, I just thought you'd like to know that the Enlightenment category is for the X11 Window Manager by that name, and not "enlightening" topics. Unfortunately, Slashdot doesn't really have an "Inspirational" category. About the best you can do is "Entertainment" and "Links". Since this is the third time you've been in want of an inspirational category, you might consider talking with Taco about remedying the situation.

E17 is in PRE-APLHA state! From Enlightenment project page: Terrasoft Ships YDL 5.0 for PS3 with E17 Pre-Alpha - Carsten Haitzler (Rasterman) (Fri, 20 Oct 2006 00:42:28 +0100)

After some hefty work on E17 of late to tie up loose ends and bring forward major positive changes to the code, sponsored by Terrasoft , Terrasoft have announced Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 for the PS3 including Enlightenment 0.17.0 pre-alpha code. We would like to thank Terrasoft for their support and hope to work with them in the future.

Considering that the icon has been used once before this year (also by kdawson) and only 4 times in 2005, maybe they just want to use it some so it doesn't rust or something.

kdawson: this is what the big E means.

You and me both -- either the poster thought they were pretty funny, or they just haven't achieved true enlightenment yet. :)

Might be offtopic here, but when I first saw the icon used for the story, I thought to myself "Holy crap E17 released finally! Then I realized that it wasn't an E17 story, and that it also wasn't April first...

I feel I've been wronged in some fashion I can't properly explain.

Is someone asleep up there in the editing room? What does a sci-fi author have to do with the Enlightenment window manager? He may have written some nifty (well, strange) books, but AFAIK, he's never coded a epplet in his life. (click the article's icon if you don't know what I'm talking about)

This one fvwm95 would probably have been a better fit for her system. I've also installed enlightenment on a lot of P2/3 class machines for people I think will be able to adapt to a new desktop.

There are a few. My favorites are:
http://www.enlightenment.org/
http://www.xfce.org/
More ways of making your desktop look different here:
http://xwinman.org/

If you're finding GNOME slow, you ought to check out XFCE, or if you're feeling adventurous, Enlightenment or Fluxbox/Blackbox.

I personally use a heavily modified Ubuntu 6.06 with Enlightenment DR17 as my desktop GUI. Extremely quick and much better looking than GNOME or *shudder* KDE.

Actually i would recommend http://enlightenment.org/ if you want to do something different.

Yes, E17 is still in development. However, pretty stable release snapshots are made now and then.
If you would leave out some small things like the file manager thingy you end up with a pretty stable desktop good enough for the *nix user. There are also widget libraries and many more stuff available for you to create your application with.

Another pro is that the developers are _very_ cross platform aware.
The licensing its really good for you too! It's truely free or some form of BSD if i remember correctly. Even if you would use it in a commercial application. They just like to hear from you and hope to see some credits somewhere on a page of manual.

An disadvantage would be that there is no file manager. So you can use a 3th party one, start your own project or keep it at the shell.

It's just too easy to say something like "create something yourself" but thats such a huge task!

An intresting idea atleast!
Hope to hear from you.

Top of my list of pet peeves is criticisms just like this.

Todays alternatives:
http://www.gnustep.org/ different desktop
http://www.enlightenment.org/Enlightenment/DR17/ (another different desktop)
http://cm.bell-labs.com/plan9/

How about putting some time and effort into ONE new and different thing, then let's talk about new and different okay?

So you're saying that "upgrading" to Vista is for looks?

Hey everybody, I got a new version of Linux!!

I would agree that Wi-Fi on Linux has some issues, but as I mentioned in a previous post, the latest Network Manager should help out.

My Wireless experience with Ubuntu was a bit challenging, but only because of WPA. The hardware support is there for Intel PRO Wireless, and some others, but it is spotty. The new Network Manager should help with this as well (I'll let you know, I am installing tonight). As for any other Wireless hot-spot that is open, my Linux machine connects right away.

I would equate the state of Linux right now to the days of Windows 95; that is, most stuff worked OK from the GUI, but for many others you had to drop to DOS and edit config.sys or autoexec.bat, or configure BIOS with addresses and interrupts or manually set up drivers, etc. I am betting that in the next 5 years Linux Desktop Environments rival that of Windows. Just check out Enlightenment... This looks a lot like Vista and or MAC OS 10..

How quickly we all forget ... http://www.enlightenment.org/

That is still the best Window Manager I have EVER used. Its simple, fast, inobtrusive and easy to configure. And beyond that you can run it on practically any hardware.

The only problem with it is that it is relatively slow to release feature updates. On the other hand, that means when they do release feature updates the software has been well tested and ready for a stable environment.

You're right. There must be a way to disable stupid stuff. I remember back in 386 days that I hated the paper-flying-animation when I first saw it.

But you can have good eyecandy, that is useful, and without switching OS versions. One thing doesn't have to come with the other...

As an example, take a look at Enlightenment DR17. It is beautiful, and it is getting pretty functional. I show it off to clueless people, and they drool all over. And it is very practical and useful already, in fact it feels a lot natural to use, specially in big resolutions. Eye candy does not get in my way. I love it and it is my primary desktop environment now.

I call bullshit. You need some Enlightenment!

You need to receive enlightenment my child. It is a difficult path not traveled by many but you will be gratified knowing you are on the one true path.

The latest version is 0.17.

http://www.enlightenment.org/

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, you probably know that the latest version of Windows--called Vista--is due to hit store shelves later this year (in time for the holidays, Microsoft tells us). The successor to Windows XP offers a little something for everyone, from eye-catching graphics and new bundled applications to more-rigorous security. In fact, there is so much in the new operating system that it can be tough to get a handle on it all.

Well, the timing you can't argue with – but the features it's advertising strike me as familiar. "Eye-catching graphics" are already available for other systems, in the form of eg. the X compositing engine and not to mention Enlightenment. Bundled applications I can't help but laugh at, especially considering that most Linux distributions have more than Notepad, Paint, and Media Player – hell, almost all of them come with a free office suite, which Microsoft users usually have to pay several hundred dollars for!

As for more-rigorous security, well, there's the first place I think the article's going wrong. Just by virtue of the fact that the word "more" is in there, you can easily see why so many people suspect Microsoft intentionally cripples the system to force upgrades. Viruses, spyware, and worms galore – and yet I have yet to see that on any Linux distribution I've used. And besides, I refuse to consider anything secure that's anything less than OpenBSD.

I've been noodling around with a recent beta version of Windows Vista (Build 5270) and had a chance to make some observations. While the sleek new look and polished interface caught my eye, it's what's under the covers that impressed me most. Microsoft's done a great job of improving security across the board. Things like Windows and spyware library updates are streamlined, and I definitely appreciate the more robust Backup software.

Again, it's "improving". Which infers that the security was, well, not very good before. And again, I still won't consider even Linux to be secure when compared with OpenBSD. As for the "spyware library updates," I don't think that they would even be necessary if Microsoft didn't make it so easy to get loaded with spyware in the first place.

Backup software is another thing worth mentioning on Linux. While it's not directly related to the article text here, it's worth mentioning one particularly understated feature of UNIX systems – how easy it is to back them up. Whereas with a Microsoft box you have settings scattered all over the hard disk, I can typically back up all my Linux boxes and even transfer the configuration to another system just by tar'ing up three basic directories – /etc, /home, and /var.

OK, let's get on to the next paragraph. Continuing!

Still, there's plenty of unfinished work left to do. Internet Explorer 7 struggled to properly render some Web pages, and I found local network connectivity to be a hit-or-miss affair. And then there's the stuff that isn't even in there yet--like the intriguing Windows Sidebar, which will put real-time weather info, stock quotes, system status, RSS feeds, and other information on the display.

Now, what really puzzles me here is how Internet Explorer is

You can have a desktop linux NOW. Fetch a modern commercial distro (http://www.ubuntu.com/>Ubuntu, Mandrake, etc) or any of the free ones and you'll have an excellent desktop with little issues, if any.

    The people that bitch about the "linux desktop" haven't normally ever tried Linux and want something that feels like their WinXP desktop. If you're looking for that, yes, there's nothing like it now and probably won't be for a while. If you want an useable Unix desktop, there's a lot of excellent ones arround.
    You have a wide choice of desktops and window and managers, and there's a lot of excellent software for them. A linux desktop is useable today, and by anyone - i had Ubuntu on a desktop for a while and my mother, who's 'computer-imparied' had zero issues using it. Besides being unable to find the blue E icon ;)

enlightenment please!?!

http://www.enlightenment.org/

1. A dozen of new web-based RSS feed readers will be announced, all featuring tags and various intricate social features. Eventually one or two will be considered the "norm" (as Blogger, Livejournal, etc are considered the norm for blogging, despite all the imitators). My bookmarks folder rejoices.

2. AMD motherboards with DDR2 will finally show up. I finally upgrade from an obsolete 32-bit system. My applications rejoice.

3. Sony PlayStation 3 will be released. It will be sold out. Then more will be released. Then more will be sold out. Then more will be released. Then the price will drop a little. Then I'll buy one. Then it will be hacked by various groups for various purposes. Sony pouts. I rejoice.

4. A new flavour of Cola: Chocolate! (Eww) Oops, not technological, sorry.

5. Opera finally releases a stable, good, browser for PocketPCs. I rejoice.

6. Enlightenment 17 is finally released. I try it, don't like it, go back to XFCE.

7. XFCE 4.4 is finally released. I upgrade. I rejoice.

8. Microsoft releases Vista. Only thing new from XP: Aero and 9 versions of the same thing with 9 different price tags. (The cheaper version users are stuck with an inferior plastic paperclip.)

9. Apple releases their new line of Intel PowerBook laptops. No one notices -- attention diverted by the release of 4 and 8 gig iPod Nanos with FM radio. I consider buying one until I realize, again, that it's a waste of money. iPod lovers' collection of iPods grows to 9 units per person. Apple rejoices.

10. I go to sleep. You rejoice.

- shazow

I believe the grandparent's post was referring to Enlightenment (currently down), which is also known as E for short.

It's *just* a window manager, so it doesn't come with annoying naming conventions. :)

Personally I don't mind KDE's naming convention *that* much, well, some of them. Konqueor, Kontact, Kopete, etc. don't bother me - they're perfectly pronouncable as if spelt with a 'C'. But prefixing K in a non-pronouncable way does annoy me a bit... KGet, KMail, KAddressBook... Gnome prefixes in the second, annoying, way more than KDE does, if my memory is correct.

You forgot Poland! ...er...GNUStep.
Sure it may not have all the apps, but, for developers, it's the closest thing to writing for a mac with out acutally writing for a mac.

http://www.gnustep.org

Also you forgot, CDE, XFCE, and Enlightenment.

but I really didn't get any enlightenment from using either

Actually, since you can run an Xserver on MacOS X or on a PC that's running linux, you can get enlightenment on *both*.